“Whip It” Roller Derby Trainer Alex Cohen on Skating, Scrimmaging and Choosing the Best Derby Name

By day, Alex Cohen hosts “All Things Considered” for station KPCC in Los Angeles. By night, however, the former NPR reporter tears around an angled track as a rock ‘em, sock ‘em roller derby girl. A long-time champion of the sport, which was invented in Depression-era America and revived in Austin, Texas in 2000, Cohen was tapped by the producers of the upcoming derby film “Whip It” to teach its leading ladies how to authentically scrimmage and take a fall. She recently spoke to the Journal about how she became involved with the sport, working with “Whip It” star Ellen Page, and how she picked her derby name “Axles of Evil.”

The Wall Street Journal: When did you first become interested in derby?

Alex Cohen: I first started getting interested in 2003. I was taking a trip to Austin and initially thought to myself, if I do a story while I’m out there, I can write it off as a business trip. But I ended up hanging out with the girls, interviewing them, seeing a couple games, and at the end of it, was really depressed that I couldn’t play in L.A. because it really called out to me. But sure enough, a couple of months after I got back to L.A., I was at a gallery in Silver Lake and my husband handed me a flier with the contact info for a new L.A. league. It was a lot of fate.

How did you become involved with the film “Whip It”?

The filmmakers knew they needed a trainer so they came to the Derby Dolls, and I was selected. So I trained with Ellen for a couple months, and then it kept evolving. Soon after, I was training Drew and all the other actresses as well, and they brought me out to Michigan [where they shot], and I ended up becoming a consultant as well. It was a very organic thing.

Ellen was first to start, in April of last year. It was a crash course, and because derby is team sport, after she got the basics down, we brought in some of the other Derby Dolls and she had practice scrimmaging, and learning to skate with people around her. In all, she trained about three months or so before we went to Michigan.

Of all the actresses on the film, who was the best skater?

They all learned remarkably well. Kristen Wiig, on one of the first days, said she remembered doing a certain move as a kid, and pulled out this maneuver called “shoot the duck,” where you’re basically in a low crouch and one leg is jutting forward. It was amazing, because there are girls who have been skating for years who can’t do that. Zoe Bell, who’s a stuntwoman, is ridiculously fit and talented. I remember her asking the training team how to do a 360 degree jump and we said no, because we physically couldn’t do it at our level [of skill]. But she fiddled around with it and figured it out on her own, and you can see her doing it in the movie.

Exactly how wide-spread is derby now?

Oh, it’s everywhere — there are more than 400 leagues throughout the world, from Stuttgart, Germany, to New Zealand, to Abu Dhabi, to this tiny little town in Sioux Falls. Some cities, like L.A. even have multiple leagues that operate and function. This current incarnation started in 2001, and there was a huge spike a couple years ago after A&E did the realty show “Roller Girls.”

Given how mainstream roller derby is getting, do you miss when the sport was more cult-y?

It’s a double-edged sword — I think that the sport has changed so much already, and there are those of us from the early days that miss when it was smaller. Now it’s more common, and there are practical complications to having so many more people around. Derby names, for example. There’s only so many funny, interesting names and there are already 16,500 names officially registered. Other growing pains of the sport getting bigger are that there are now girls who show up simply because they want to be on TV or they think it’s going to make them money. Those girls never last very long, but they still take up resources and time.

Tell me about your derby name, Axles of Evil. Why did you pick it?

“Axles of Evil” is like the trifecta of derby names — first, it’s play off my real name, so it’s easy for people to remember. It’s also inspired by my love of vintage cars, so my “Axle” is like a car axle, not a figure skater’s triple axel jump. Plus, at the time I picked it, we had this president who was always talking about the “axis of evil,” so as a news person, it was doubly appealing to me.